Have you ever stumbled upon something
that at the time seemed to be just what you were looking for? And what
about after some time has passed, was it even better than you
originally thought? We think we did just that with Cardiff Giant wines.

A few years back, after moving to wine country from the
hectic pace of Southern California, we decided we knew a little
more about wine than we did before and wanted to put together a blend
we could call our own. We would hand it out to some friends and mostly
just goof on ourselves. The plan was set, the blend was done and now we
needed a name.

We tossed around a lot of names – most not even worth
mentioning here. As we contemplated, we passed the time by reciting
lines from one of our favorite movies, Made.
Then it hit us – Cardiff Giant. In a scene from the movie Jon Favreau
and Vince Vaughn are sent to New York by their mobster boss. Their boss
tells them that there will be a car service waiting for them at the
airport to take them wherever they need to go and take care of whatever
needs they may have. All they have to do is mention to the driver
Jimmy...."Cardiff Giant". That was it! We now had a name but, what in
the world was Cardiff Giant? We Googled Cardiff Giant and what we found
was masterful.

It turns out that in 1869 while digging a well on a farm
in Cardiff, New York, laborers unearthed a strange figure of mammoth
proportion. After careful excavation, the remains of a 10’ 4''
primordial figure was revealed. Visitors traveled miles and miles to
Stubby Newell’s farm and paid 2 bits to see the petrified figure that
would eventually become known as, The Cardiff Giant. It even caught the
attention of showman P.T. Barnum who offered to buy the Giant for his
traveling show.

In time, it was revealed that the primordial man was
actually a fake that had been carved out of gypsum and buried on the
farm by Stubby Newell’s cousin, George Hull. It all was an elaborate
hoax, contrived by Hull, an atheist, who had recently argued with a
minister about a passage in the Bible that stated that there were
Giants who once lived on Earth. Newell and Hull had already made
$50,000 on this giant hoax. (Pun intended!)

It was all too perfect. The biggest hoax in American history was now our hoax as well. We hope you’ll enjoy discovering our Cardiff Giant wine, the same way we enjoyed the journey it took to get it to you.

FUN FACTS

In 1870, Mark Twainwrote "A Ghost Story" in which the ghost of the Cardiff Giant appears
in the hotel room in Manhattan to demand that he be reburied. The Giant
is so confused that he haunts Barnum's plaster copy of himself.

In 1871, L. Frank Baum published a poem titled "The True Origin of the Cardiff Giant" in his private newspaper, The Rose Lawn Home Journal, vol. 1, #3.

George
Auger, a Ringling Brothers circus giant, used the stage name "Cardiff
Giant". He was to act in Harold Loyd's 1923 comedy film Why Worry?, but died shortly after filming started, sparking a nationwide search for a replacement.

American Goliath by Harvey Jacobs is a 1997 novel based on the Cardiff Giant.

The 2001 film Made contains a fictional agency named Cardiff Giant.

The giant is mentioned in From A Buick 8, a novel by Stephen King.

Cardiff Giant is an alt folk-rock band formed in Bloomington, Indiana, in 2002.